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FIFTY PRINTS 
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oer ml CAN FNSTITUTE OF GRAPHYTC ARTS 


Zoek yY PRINTS 


EXHIBITED BY THE INSTITUTE 


HOY, 


AN INTRODUCTION 
BY 
ROCKWELL KENT 


~NEW YORK: WILLIAM: EDWIN: RUDGE: 


THE ART 1 Sor ss: OR THEir AGENTS RETAIN: 


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Us 7 REPRODUC 


le Nati RaQeD Ur Gels] O“N 


ROCKWELL 


Ir might be said that a too generous considera- 
tion is given by the press and by periodicals of 
art to painting, in that the costliness of paint- 
ings and the limited activity of our museums 
in that field of contemporary art restricts the 
possession and enjoyment of them to a privi- 
leged few. The possibility of ultimate posses- 
sion is not to be lightly disassociated from the 
participation in any experience so intimate 
and stirring as those that life and art some- 
times afford, and we may consider cost as 
a real factor in what popularity an art may 
achieve. 

Granting that the cost of prints puts them 
within the reach of any purchaser, it should at 
the same time be realized that all prints, as 
they are here considered, are “originals” in 
the same precious sense as a unique paint- 
ing, and that the various processes of making 
prints lend themselves to the most adequate 
expression of the artist’s vision of beauty. In 
order that the art of print making may be 


more generally respected as an art of many 


BY 


KENT 


“originals,” and that its many different forms 
may be accepted as of equal dignity we un- 
dertake a brief description of how prints are 
made. 

A print is the finished original of a design 
of which the plate, stone, or block from which 
it is the impression represents—even when, 
completed, it leaves the hand of the artist— 
only one stage in the process of making the 
print. To maintain a standard of high quality 
in prints the editions are usually limited. 

Prints may by their processes be divided 
into three classes of which the following types 
are best known: the etching, the lithograph 
and the woodcut. 

The etching plate is of metal and the design 
is etched or eaten into the plate. The plate 
before printing is completely coated with ink; 
the ink is then wiped off the surface of the 
plate but left filling the etched lines. Then 
the plate is printed, the paper being slightly 
forced into the ink filled lines to receive the 


impression. The result is a print in which the 


design appears in infinitesimal relief. That re- 
lief is characteristic of the engraving and the 
mezzotint. 

Lithographs are printed from a stone or 
porous surfaced plate on which the design has 
been drawn, or transferred, in a greasy medi- 
um which is sympathetic toink.Thelithograph 
shows no relief or impression; it is flat. 

Woodcuts, or wood block prints, are im- 
pressions from blocks the surface of which 
has been cut away to leave the black lines of 
the design standing. In wood block prints the 
design appears as slightly pressed into the 
paper. Linoleum printsare of the same nature. 

One may say that, as far as art is concerned, 
all processes are equally difficult or simple. 
They each yield their proper and different 
results. And that the artist chooses at all to 
produce prints rather than drawings is in con- 
sideration both of the nature of the result and 
of the economic necessity of making many 
originals of one design. Print making is a 
democratic art. 

As to the critical evaluation of prints: un- 
less that can be done in such terms as may 
equally be applied to the consideration of 
painting and, in a less detailed sense, to all 
art, it could only serve to differentiate the art 
of print making from the, broadly speaking, 
intentional identity of all the arts of expres- 


sion. And there, having by all experience been 


all they feel and all that they are moved to do, . 
we are unwilling to venture. We have little ; 
patience with the precious critical approachto 


art which would discover the experience of ies 5 


life, and we regard the aesthetics of art as 
identical with the prevailing aesthetics of our : ; 
universe which in their totality are that uni- 
verse as the senses apprehend it. 
Nor do we believe that the dissection of | 
design into its aesthetic elements can add a a 
candle power to its illumination: There’s too” z 
much explaining of art. The less justifying of md 
ourselves and others we indulge in the less _ 
we'll get encumbered with relationships that — 


don’t belong to us. If any problem exists be- : 


of regarding the public and being interested 
in it, one might appropriately tender some ex- : 


planation to the high serenity of art of the — 


the public mind; and as we may suppose it to ag 


be the aim of the psychologist to dispose the he 


of what is already an elucidation might better 
address himself to clarifying men’s faculties 


of perception. 1 ete ae 


Of these fifty prints there are a few that I 
would love to possess, many that I like, some 
that I’m indifferent to, and several that to me 
are dreadful. There has been no intention, I 
must believe, on the part of either of the two 
distinguished judges to present their choice 
of prints as being in any absolute sense the 
best prints of the year. The groups stand as 
an expression, within prescribed limits, of 
the judges’ taste. They are submitted for the 
personal re-evaluation of everyone who sees 
them. And in the scarcely more than technical 
difference that appears to separate the “mod- 
ern” from the “conservative” group one may 
discover either unwillingness or inability on 
the part of the “modern” judge to make a clear 
distinction. It was both. He holds art to be 
essentially and properly untraditional, that 
it is liable or susceptible to any variation of 
form which the creator’s genius may require; 
and that the occasional periodic resemblances 
which art assumes, and which are the basis of 
academic classification, are relatively unim- 
portant; that, in other words, the manner of 
art is not essentially related to its content 
nor a matter properly of anyone’s too serious 
concern. 

It may be that the extremes of weakness or 
of senseless fashion which the art of every 


period persistently reverts to are the basis for 


the popular division of art into “schools,” for 
genius would appear to elude the yard stick. 
The kinship of genius, the essential likeness 
of its works of every period is more apparent 
and infinitely more significant than its alleged 
relationship at any time to the schools of its 
day; and it is as manifestly unfair to class a 
Ryder or a Winslow Homer with a school on 
which the banalities of a National Academy 
have put the stamp of character as to confuse 
Von Gogh and Picasso with their bewildered 
“modern” followers. 

It is not for even the most qualified judge 
of art, if one can qualify to judge, to interpret 
the meaning of art or to assert that it essen- 
tially has meaning. We may be moved by 
beauty or conceive of it without a thought of 
what it signifies; and a perceived significance 
may still give out no hint of what. 

To the prayer that those who may look at 
these Fifty Prints dispose themselves to the 
simple enjoyment of their qualities, we may 
add that with maybe no exception their lan- 
guage of expression should offer no problem 


to a simple and unschooled intelligence. 


ROcKWELL KENT 


3 Washington Square North 
New York 


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1. Jonn Taytor Arms La Mangia, Siena ETCHING 


2. Witt1am AverBAcH-LEvy Elsbeth sorr GROUND ETCHING 


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5. Frances GEARHART Heart of the Canyon BLOCK PRINT 


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6. ArMIN HANSEN 


7. AtrreD Hurry Gossips ETCHING 


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15. B.J.O.Norpreipt Man from Arroyo Hondo "ETCHING 


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19. Bircer SANDZEN Moonrise on Blue River LITHOGRAPH 


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37. Emit Ganso Halberstadt ETCHING 


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39. Tuomas Hanprortu Sfazr, Tunis ETCHING 


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43. CuaRLEs Locke Portrait of a Banker LITHOGRAPH 


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44. L. J. Meissner Shoes woopcut 


45. I. J. Sancer Howse and Barn LITHOGRAPH 


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FIVE HUNDRED 


COPIES PR 


AT THE PRINTING 
MOUNT VERNON 


GETTY ates ENTER LIBRARY i hence? otf ’ “be bee ' C fd a ge RMS, ae cee kl gm 


iii MY ee ane Pans ee 


